Torchbearer Expanded Conflict Example

[dragoner]

Nothing wrong with target numbers and tables. That seems in touch with the mainstream actually.

Recently I have been hearing of a push back against them, but working with tables, I also know that making good ones is often an art in itself.

[robiswrong]

That's what I find odd about Torchbearer. It's described (by the authors) as a love letter to Basic D&D. But the complexity and fiddlyness seems cranked up on the game. Such that I would consider it to be more of a love-letter to "crunchier D&D editions" with a focus on dungeon-crawling.

Torchbearer seems to strive for the feel of Basic D&D, but at the expense of the mechanical feel - which is part of its charm, IMO.

The BW crew seem to use the same basic mechanics for everything - Torchbearer seems mostly like "their interpretation of Basic D&D with the common BW mechanics" than anything else.

They're obviously very comfortable and fluent with those mechanics - and more power to them for that.  I don't have the same level of affection for those mechanics, so the game is frankly a tougher sell to me.

[robiswrong]

Seems like a rather fiddly system.


The "conflict captain" sounds like the caller role taken to the nth degree.

I've played MouseGuard, but not Torchbearer, but it seems like they use the same basic conflict system.

The way that MG works is that each side in a Conflict determines the next three actions that they'll do.  For each action, one character takes the 'lead', and the others can assist them.

Once that's done, the actions are resolved one at a time.  Each side in the conflict reveals their action, and they interact in some ways - so if both sides choose 'attack', then each get a chance to do damage to the other.  If one side chooses 'attack', and the other 'defend', then the defenders can  mitigate the damage or even regain damage ('disposition' is what they call it).

To actually resolve it, each side figures out how many dice they get to roll - which is generally the skill number of the 'lead' character, 1 die for each assistant, and then additional dice for gear, 'traits', etc., and subtract dice for ongoing conditions they're dealing with, or negative traits.

Anyway.  Given this system, the idea of one player being responsible for coordinating this amongst the party and giving the info to the GM makes a *ton* of sense, even if the name 'conflict captain' is pretty silly.

And yes, the conflict system can get kind of meta at times.  It's definitely a 'declare overall intent, roll the dice, and then interpret them' kind of system, as it takes place at a much higher abstraction level than a per-character, per-action level.

In play, it's not as fiddly as it sounds - especially if you're given the example of play without any understanding of what the hell is actually happening in terms of the overall combat system.

Burning Wheel, on the other hand, *is* fiddly to the nth degree, which is why I abandoned it after about six sessions.  I liked some of the subsystems, but actually getting everything to flow together with any kind of smoothness was beyond my group and I.  I'm sure it's a decent system given sufficient fluency in it by the players, but *getting* to that point is another thing entirely.  It feels very much like a system that organically grew by a small group of people that played it for a long time, and so didn't have to really worry about the approachability.  And I'm pretty sure that's *exactly* what it is - the game that Luke Crane and his buddies evolved out of Shadowrun, oWoD, etc.

[One Horse Town]

OHT didn't say why he didn't like the game, at least not in the post I quoted.

Quite right, i didn't and i don't. I just find certain things mentioned about it amusing considering the source.

[Omega]

Recently I have been hearing of a push back against them, but working with tables, I also know that making good ones is often an art in itself.

Its been going back and fourth in RPGs and board games too.
One faction despises reference tables and one faction thinks they are usefull. The rest just play the damn game and do not care.

As said in another page. Deconstructing a table into its text form is a messy process. Ive done it for the sight impaired when it was pointed out that tables oft do not convert properly to braille.

For the general sighted gamer though a table is quick and efficient and takes up less space and is less hassle. Others disagree.

[dragoner]

I agree about the braille part.

[Imperator]

It seems to be an awfully complicated game for nothing. I think I'll pass.

[Motorskills]

It seems to be an awfully complicated game for nothing. I think I'll pass.

I've never played Mouse Guard, and my brief forays into Burning Wheel have been painful.

So my credentials don't include "Burning X fanboi".


I Kickstarted Torchbearer (pretty much "just because"), and I have now had the opportunity to play it a few times, and run it a few times.

Short version - it's got a lot of moving parts, but once they click, they all click seamlessly. It's definitely better to be taught, but that's true of a lot of games.


At a recent Convention I was able to run a session for complete newbies. I started with a brief overview of the basic concepts of the game, how it differed from BECMI and other OSR games.

We then got straight into it, I introduced rules as and when they came up (I slightly rigged the scenario to make this rollout as logically sequential as possible). This was straightforward.

Everyone (including me) had a blast, and I'm happy to confirm that the game works, and works well.

For me BECMI (et al) thrive on the thrill of success, killing the monsters, rescuing the princess, looting the vault, whathaveyou.

That kind of buzz is replicable in Torchbearer, sure.
But I think the true thrill comes from the peril of failure, the peril of risk. It's about calculated decision-making, and the intra-party stress associated with that decision-making (aka roleplaying). It's definitely not a boardgame.

It's not a storygame (a la Fiasco, or Carolina Death Crawl), it's a true roleplaying game.


I look forward to running Torchbearer again at OwlCon, with people that might not even have heard of the game, I'll do even better next time.